Table of Contents

Round 5 W1 Results

By: Wunder

The first week has come and gone, and with it the dreams of hundreds, as Hydra wrecks Fantasy leagues while sOs fails to perform. Meanwhile, Terran manages to make a cameo appearance in PvProleague as INnoVation and Flash do some showing off. Predictably, Innovation all-killed EG-TL while Flash shows off what he can do after a rather disappointing performance in the GSL Group of Death. With KT's wins this week, they're back on the path back to stardom.

Standings

KeSPa Terrans

While last round featured near-endless PvPs, this round kicked off with some good old fashioned Terran domination. With the combination of the the all-kill format and the changes to the Protoss-favored maps from Round 4, we are starting to see coaches field players other than those of the Protoss persuasion. While there is certainly still a fair bit of strategy in the form of snipers and starters, for all intents and purposes the all-kill format is akin to a mêlée while the Proleague format is like a jousting tourney.

While you may unseat a few good knights and gain honor and valor, you miss the visceral action and accomplishment of winning an entire mêlée. That’s exactly what happened last week, as both INnoVation and Flash waded into the action and destroyed opponent after opponent, with the STX Terran all-killing EG-TL and Flash 3-killing Samsung KHAN. Innovation looked near untouchable, switching from defensive to ultra aggressive in all four games, with his game against TaeJa being one of the closest. He went for a siege tank timing without stim against Taeja’s fast third CC. And while the Liquid Terran seemed to have all the advantages on his side(stim, equal tanks, an additional expansion, and more upgrades), Innovation just spread his marines perfectly and there was simply not enough for Taeja to hold. From there it was downhill for EG-TL as neither Jaedong nor aLive could hold their own against the fearsome Terran.

On the other side of the coin, Flash finally started picking up a few wins after a disappointing round 4, and he ran a complete clinic against Samsung’s top players. RorO and Reality both fell against the unstoppable force that was Flash’s mech, while JangBi was dismantled by Flash’s bio. While statistically the appearance of Terrans was not more or less than the other races, it was still nice to see the familiar faces of Innovation and Flash go on a huge winning streak against their opponents.

That being said, it's time to talk about that other elephant in the room. When fans praise KeSPa Terrans, they're usually only talking about Flash and Innovation. After these two titans, the pickings are slim. FanTaSy shows signs of brilliance but is often shaky and then after that, you're left with the slim pickings of only average players like Light, Cure, TY, and Reality. Compare that with the swarms of notable Zergs (RorO, Soulkey, EffOrt, Hydra, ZerO, soO) and the legions of high level Protoss (Rain, PartinG, sOs, herO[jOin], Argo, Zest, Stats, JangBi, Stork, Dear, free) and it's easy to see why Terran has been the worst performing race in Proleague.

KT Roll-ster

After a few average rounds for KT Rolster, the team has desperately been looking for an answer and they may have found it in the form of the all-kill format. In round 2, KT kicked the round off with a bang, starting off with two all-kills And while they didn’t all-kill at the start of this round, the same two players were the ones to perform for the team. The player formerly known as P7GAB, Zest, managed a three-kill in the first match against the #1 team, Woongjin Stars, while Flash finished off Samsung with a three-kill as well.

Why do they do well in the all-kill round? Well, like we’ve been saying in previous rounds, KT’s team revolves around their triple threat of Flash, Zest and Stats. Not having all three play in a game is a mistake, and in round 2, they only lost one game when they decided to field all three players. KT Rolster went on to lose two more due to the fact they went on to field players like HoeJJa, Action and Crazy in an attempt to allow their Zergs some exposure. However, what makes the situation different from last time is the fact that KT started this round below the playoff line and while their 2-0 this week helped to boost them back into the top four, they now know that a few unwarranted losses could mean the difference between the playoffs and getting knocked out.

Additionally, Zergs like hitmaN and Action have fallen off in their performance, going 3-2 and 0-2 last round respectively. While Crazy might see the starter line once or twice this round, I wouldn’t be surprised to see KT continue to field Stats or Zest as starters and perhaps allow Puzzle a game or two if they’re massively ahead.

Games of the Week

by kollin

Often in the best games of the week section, we see big names such as Fantasy, Flash or Innovation grab the headlines. This week the only regular was Rain, with some of the lesser known players coming in to fill the gaps. The first game is a TvZ which contains a solid 20 minutes of constant MMMM fighting off the Zerg swarm, and the second game shows that Terminator, as promised, is back as he takes out Rain in an impressive fashion.

The first match we will be looking at is between Team 8 regular, Cure, and the SKT T1 Zerg, s2. The game started out as you would expect of a normal TvZ; Cure opened with a reaper expand, while s2 chose a hatchery first. Cure chose not to follow up his opener with a quick third base and instead added on a starport with the intention of putting on heavy marine, hellion and mine pressure. The initial drops did not achieve much, but Cure was not deterred in the slightest as he kept skirting around the fringes of the creep with his army. s2 eventually overwhelmed this meager force with muta ling bane, but Cure showed no signs of stopping and kept up the aggression.

Cure was clearly trying to mimic Innovation's extremely successful style of bio mine, which involves just overrunning the opponent with sheer numbers after constant multi-pronged aggression for 20 minutes. Cure came close to pulling it off, but stumbled at a critical hurdle. He certainly managed to keep the aggression up, but not the multi-pronged part and eventually s2 had secured six bases compared to Cure's four. Both players were relatively mineral starved, but s2's far superior economy allowed him to transition to brood lords while taking a seventh base. Cure was unprepared for this transition, and his 4M army was eventually crushed after an insane back and forth which had nearly spanned the entire length of the map.

Cure showed some good concepts in his play, and his control was solid, but the lack of drops at the same time as the pushes forward really hurt him. Nevertheless, promising play from the Team 8 Terran, and despite the loss, we'll definitely see more of him yet.

Terminator. When KeSPA transitioned to Starcraft 2, you looked so promising. Or maybe you just had a cool name. After all, it was a fairly long time ago; who can really remember? No matter which one it was, you are certainly looking good now as you took out Parting and then his teammate, Rain, this weekend. The game against Rain was a dominating display from Terminator, as he opened with a 3 gate oracle attack, which battered through Rain's lackluster defenses, as the SKT Protoss had chosen a gateway expand. Rain's nexus fell, and Terminator contained him while expanding himself. Rain stuck to the mantra "when behind, dark shrine", and dealt significant economic damage to his opponent with zealot and DT warp-ins and drops. The contain was eventually broken, and Rain teched for colossus while Terminator chose to add another stargate to begin void ray production.

Neither player satisfied to stay the course, they both immediately switched tech paths upon scouting each other. Rain chose archons, and Terminator chose double robo colossus and a faster third base. The Team 8 'Toss had made the right decision, and was subsequently able to get his own archons up, while still having the superior colossus numbers. Terminator eventually encroached upon Rain's third, and whittled down the gateways and eventually the nexus. But Rain was not entirely down and out. Multiple storm drops were raining on Terminator's parade in the meantime and Terminator was down to less than thirty probes. Both players postured around each other, looking for the superior position and eventually the engagement occurred. Terminator's far superior army locked onto - and neutralized - Rain's force and took the game, as well as a 4-2 win for Team 8.

Terminator is proving to be quite the little PvP sniper fittingly. He will no doubt be sent out in the future (or should I say the past) to take out unwary Protoss who are not fully prepared for his style. Hasta la vista, baby.

The Cure vs S2 game made it clear that Innovation and Flash's "Eternal Bio Push of the Spotless Macro" is not as easy as it looks and isn't just some build any Terran can do. Yes it is a very strong strategy, but only a few Terran's can reliably pull it off. The danger comes from the fact that a Terran has to dedicate a full 3 base economy to the push and can't really expand while doing it. If the zerg manages to hold a fourth against the aggression then the Terran either has to pull back and take his own or keep pushing and hope to break it. If he pulls back he has to deal with Ultras/Infs (sometimes BL and Vipers) which square much better against bio than muta-ling-bane (duh) or ling-bane-infestor. Also, as Soulkey vs Innovation shows, if your 3 base Eco is damaged at all it totally gimps the push and you are in some serious dooky.